Many people in Sheletta Brundidge’s fan base “met” her through her social media accounts. After seeing one of her clever, funny or thought-provoking posts, they became devoted followers and friends.
Now they may be puzzled why her familiar presence is gone.
They can still get a handle on what she’s thinking, doing and finding hilarious. Brundidge has gone old school, moving from social media to SheLetta’s NewsLetta, a daily free newsletter available via email. You can sign subscribe at: https://www.shelettamakesmelaugh.com.
Brundidge’s exit from social media began as she tuned in to Donald Trump’s inauguration. She didn’t watch for long, but one image burned in her brain.
“When I saw Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos sitting behind the President, I knew the fix was in,” said Brundidge, an Emmy award-winning broadcaster, podcaster and activist who founded the ShelettaMakesMeLaugh.com platform and production company.
With a background as a television newsroom assignment editor, Brundidge has perfected her instinct in selecting and crafting irresistible content that went viral many times.
“That’s my skill set,” she explained. “Social media, in its purest form, was the great equalizer. It allowed the small to have a big impact.”
For years, Brundidge has posted on a daily basis, offering her followers her take on the news of the day and a peek into her personal life as well as sharing content about her sponsors.
The mother of four children, including three with autism, Brundidge has shared some of the high points of her family’s journey. Her post with video of her non-verbal son Daniel’s breakthrough with music as he sang “Old Town Road” earned more than 10 million engagements. The post of her son Brandon seeing the “Let’s Go Brandon” signs and assuming they were messages of support for him, garnered 30 million.
But after Trump returned to the White House, Brundidge noticed a change.
“Engagement dropped enough for me to say, this is trending in the wrong direction,” she said. “You’re telling me I wake up after the inauguration and I don’t know what people want? No. Algorithms are being tinkered with.”
Christopher Terry, Associate Professor and Cowles Fellow of Journalism, Policy and Law at the University of Minnesota, said Brundidge’s suspicions are justified.
“One cannot write off the possibility of a shadow ban or throttling, especially in the case of these platforms and the fact that Sheletta is an influential Black woman,” Terry said.
A shadow ban is when a social media company limits who can see posts without the knowledge of the person posting. That leads to content is being shown to fewer followers, which causes a drop in engagement.
Throttling creates a delay in slowing the speed that a user experiences when clicking on a link in a news or social media link. In 2023, it was reported by the Washington Post and other news organizations that Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter) engaged in throttling to slow the speed for users accessing links to news and online competitors.
None of this sits well with Brundidge, who likens social media to a modern-day form of sharecropping.
“You post your creativity, your intellectual property for people to like, comment and share,” Brundidge explained. “But it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to Mark Zuckerberg.”
According to Terry, the arrangement with social media is actually worse than sharecropping.
“It’s more parasitic. You give up all the rights to that content. It’s just the terms of service you agree to,” he said. “My students are shocked when I tell them this.”
That’s why Brundidge decided to get out from under the grip of social media and walk away from her accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads and TikTok and created “SheLetta’s NewsLetta,” tagged with the line, “Get Your Happy Back.”
The newsletter is a three-minute read that drops into email inboxes at 11 a.m., Monday through Friday. It arrives after subscribers have gone through their email and headlines and can use a moment of levity.
Brundidge can be counted on to find the humor in her day-to-day domestic challenges, like sharing the story (and photo) of her bent over the bathroom sink next to her son Daniel, trying to retrieve the toothpaste cap, dry erase marker, pencil and lotion bottle pump stuck down the drain.
“Somehow he claims it was an accident,” Brundidge wrote. “I don’t know about you, but this don’t sound like no accident to me.”
In its first weeks, the SheLetta NewsLetta is making readers laugh and even reach out. Deb from Northfield emailed, “I love this newsletter! Keep on keeping on!” Louis wrote “Love your newsletta Sheletta!” and Brenda chimed in, “Just sharing, I’m loving the newsletter! So much fun to read and a day brightener.”
Brundidge has a good feeling about her new venture, which lines up with her desire to retreat from forums that have turned negative, cruel and harshly critical.
“I’m done going into dark rooms. I’m going to go over here and shine bright,” she said.
Sign up for Sheletta’s Newsletta here: https://www.shelettamakesmelaugh.com.